This has been my best-received story so far, recommended by Locus Online, translated into Chinese and Hungarian for leading SF magazines in those languages, and assigned as required reading in at least two philosophy classes in the US.

The setting is Beijing circa 1700, post-European invasion and collapse, resulting in a mashup of European and Chinese institutions. Dauphin Jisun Fei takes a metaphysics class with the the Academy's star woman professor and conceives a plan for radical life extension.